'The fasting cure' answered / by Anthony Bassler.

  • Bassler, Anthony, 1874-
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: 'The fasting cure' answered / by Anthony Bassler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    chronic excessive putrefaction in the intestine of tlie indolic fonii begun in childhood, and the low stock of vital, nervous, and reserve energy he possessed previous to the novel-writing days, broken down further by his life thereafter, finally led to the development of his temperamental neurosis into a marked neurasthenia. The reasons for his improvement.— Against the allegation that fasting was the cause of his improvement, I wish to present the following statement of his: “I went out of doors and lay in the sun all day, reading.” Here were rest with fresh air and mental diversion to help him recuperate. When he broke the fast, he “took a glassful of warm milk every hour the first day, every three-quarters of an hour tiie next day, and finally every half-hour—or eight quarts a day.” From clinical experience, long before the reason therefor was understood, we physicians had learned that fresh milk was the food par e.vcellence for the ill. Today we know the reason 'of the value of an exclusive milk diet, viz., tliat because of the ready digestibility of milk it is practically all absorbed before reaching the colon, thus leaving but little chance for the organisms in the colon to act upon it; in a word, those on a milk diet harbor less bacteria in the intestines than do those on a mixed diet, and this is the basis of the improvement in cases on the Metchnikoff milk diet (not because of the lactic acid or the bacteria contained in it). The ridiculous part of this is that he claims to have dis- covered the milk diet. If Sinclair, instead of fasting first, had from a mixed diet suddenly changed to a milk diet of about three quarts a day and rested in the sun, with mental diversion.®, he would have accomplished the same results in the space of time he mentions, and, just as truly, ho would not have run the danger of an acute dilatation of the stomach from the large amounts of milk he took. Taking every three-quarters of an hour in glassfuls milk which takes three hours to leave the stomach, almost a quart must have been in his stomach at ever)' minute of the day—a ridiculous and dangerous amount, as one of my cases proved it to be. Added to these facts comes physical exercise, a most wholesome thing for one afilicted with his disorder to engage in. “Whenever I had a spare minute or two I would begin to stand on my head, or to ‘chin’ myself, or do some other ‘stunt.’ ” Then again, he took daily enemata of water for his constipation, thus clearing out the bacteria and putrefying foods in his colon and thereby helping his local and general condition; but, like the other good measures employed in his cure, they are not given much credit for his improvement in health. How he should have been treated.— An accurate diagnosis of his condition being made from the history and clinical symptoms, with a careful study of what and how much food he was taking, an exhaustive quantitative chemical examination of the urine and an investigation of the stools, as to their quantity, the character of food and detritus, and the amounts and character of the contained bacteria, would have suggested the proper diet for him and how much of each of the foods he should take, the hygienic measures to be instituted, and the proper vaccine to raise